Sometimes Monday is for Poetry

Sometimes Monday is for Poetry

Michael Eric Dyson Spoke in depth about James Baldwin in his book What the Truth Sounds Like. My knowledge of James Baldwin was non-existent but thanks to the internet, I found a beautiful introduction to James Baldwin and his works. I found this poem most interesting and thought I would share it with you all today!

The giver (for Berdis)
By James Baldwin

If the hope of giving
is to love the living,
the giver risks madness
in the act of giving.

Some such lesson I seemed to see
in the faces that surrounded me.

Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,
what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?

The giver is no less adrift
than those who are clamouring for the gift.

If they cannot claim it, if it is not there,
if their empty fingers beat the empty air
and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer
knows that all of his giving has been for naught
and that nothing was ever what he thought
and turns in his guilty bed to stare
at the starving multitudes standing there
and rises from bed to curse at heaven,
he must yet understand that to whom much is given
much will be taken, and justly so:
I cannot tell how much I owe.

Finally, a tiny postscript to last week:

If you did not find anything wrong with the post that lit the internet on fire last week, Karen explains beautifully what should have made you uncomfortable here.

And, then perhaps this perspective will open your eyes even wider.

Three on Thursday | 1.10.19

Three on Thursday | 1.10.19

I am joining with Carole today and my things all surround something that sort of blew up over social media this week thanks to a very poorly conceived blog post and the crucial things we all need to learn from this debacle:

Thing One:

An apology for offending people is not an apology. The apology needed to be for the behavior, thoughts, ignorance, and yes… the extremely poorly worded blog post.

Thing Two:

Making excuses for your behavior does nothing but compound the problem.

Thing Three:

Finally, it requires each of us to spend time realizing that we don’t know, what we don’t know – and in that realization – we need to make the commitment to learn more. Be more aware. Acknowledge that we have said – say – did – do things every single day that compound this problem. And, yes… even that we are silent when we should not be.

This opened the door to a very real problem that exists in the Fiber Community, et al – it is structured for white success. We all need to work on making it more inclusive – this is not something we can think well “someone else will do that.” It is something that requires work from each of us collectively – every day!

I am not linking to the blog post, but you can find it on the Fringe Association blog but there is a very interesting conversation happening on IG which you can see here and here and here.

Image used courtesy of Peter Heeling.

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